Crispy Sesame Tofu with Zucchini Noodles (Vegetarian Meal Prep)
on Jan 04, 2018, Updated Aug 25, 2020
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Crispy sesame tofu with zucchini noodles is the perfect healthy, vegetarian meal prep. It’s low carb, vegan, and gluten free too! These meal prep lunches are served with crispy sesame tofu on a bed of zucchini noodles and a delicious peanut sauce to go with!
If one of your goals for 2024 is to meal prep more, then this cripsy sesame tofu with zucchini noodles is just perfect! It’s light, it’s filling, it’s healthy, and absolutely delicious! And my favourite part about eating this dish is that there is absolutely no post-lunch sleepiness – a problem I often struggle with after a heavy meal.
I often prepare a large batch of this crispy sesame tofu with zucchini noodles over the weekend, especially when I know I am going to have a hectic week, and it’s easily one of my favorite meal prep recipes ever.
Quick Walk Through: Crispy Sesame Tofu
Peanut Sauce
The sauce is a very important part of this recipe. It’s a super easy blender sauce made with peanut butter, vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, maple syrup and water. This sauce is incredibly delicious and versatile, and I love using it in my salads and bowls. In fact, I have permanent space set aside for this sauce in the refrigerator now.
How to make zucchini noodles
Even though zucchini noodles are available at stores now, they aren’t always the easiest to find. Plus using store-bought noodles can be expensive. Therefore, I find making my own noodles so much easier. Apart from it being cheaper, making it at home ensures it’s fresher. I use my good, old mandoline to make zucchini noodles at home. It’s the most convenient option in my opinion, but it’s not the only way. Here are 5 different ways you can make fresh zucchini noodles at home.
Top Tips To Make The Best Crispy Sesame Tofu with Zucchini Noodles
- You can store the sauce in these little sauce container, and the zucchini noodles in these glass meal prep containers and you are good to go!
- Make sure to store the sauce separately and pour it over right before eating. This will keep the noodles crunchy till you are ready to eat.
How to eat crispy sesame tofu with zucchini noodle meal prep lunches
- You can either eat this cold like a salad. I basically toss everything in the sauce and eat it straight from the refrigerator, This way the zucchini noodles stay crunchy and its great for afternoons
- Or you can pour the sauce over the tofu and microwave the meal prep container. Toss everything and it’s a delicious hot meal. The zucchini noodles do leave a little water when you microwave, and when you toss everything together, it gets a little soupy but still stays crunchy and delicious.
Once you make this, you’ll realise that weekday lunching has never been this easy or this delicious! Even though this meal is vegan, you can easily replace the tofu with the tofu with protein of your choice like paneer or chicken.
Crispy Sesame Tofu with Zucchini Noodle (Vegetarian Meal Prep)
Ingredients
Sesame Peanut Sauce
- 1/2 cup Peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons Sesame Oil
- 1/4 cup Light low sodium Soy Sauce
- 1/4 cup Rice Vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Chilli Flakes
- 2 tablespoons Maple Syrup, or Honey
- 2-3 Garlic Cloves, roughly chopped
- 1 knob Ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
Other Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon Oil
- 350 gms Firm Tofu, cut into small pieces
- Zucchinis, spiralized
- Sesame Seeds and Green Onions, for topping
Instructions
- In a blender or add all the ingredients for the sauce along with a splash of water and blend till smooth. Set aside 1/4 cup sauce and divide the rest in the mini sauce containers. You might be left with a little extra sauce which you can reserve for later – it works really well as a salad dressing!
- Heat oil in a pan and add the tofu. As soon as the tofu is a very light brown, add 1/4 cup sauce to the pan and toss the tofu in it. Cook everything on low heat. In some time, the sauce will start to evaporate and slowly it will start turning into golden brown and sticking to the pan and tofu. Things will become crispy and you finally you'll be left with crispy browned bits of tofu in the pan.
- To assemble the meal prep containers, divide zucchini noodles in the containers. Divide the tofu amongst the containers and place the mini sauce containers on one side. Place the lid and refrigerate for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Two ways to eat:
- You can either eat these cold like a salad. I basically toss everything in the sauce and eat it straight from the refrigerator, This way the zucchini noodles stay crunchy and its great for afternoons
- Or you can pour the sauce over the tofu and microwave the meal prep container. Toss everything and it’s a delicious hot meal. The zucchini noodles do leave a little water when you microwave, and when you toss everything together, it gets a little soupy but still stays crunchy and delicious.
- It’s best to store the sauce separately till you are ready to eat so that the zoodles stay crunchy.
- You can easily swap the zoodles for noodles if you like because these taste great both ways!
This was so delicious and easy to make! My daughter loved it and said she’d make the sauce to use on everything.
Thanks for leaving a comment! Soooo glad you liked it Melissa
I substituted chicken for tofu as we arent vegetarian and that’s what we had!
This recipe is delicious and I found the sauce really tasty and unique!
Yea the sauce is the best! Soooo glad you liked it Ekta
This recipe was incredible! The sauce almost tasted cream based. So good. One question though. Any idea how many calories it is per serving
So happy you liked the recipe Meredith! Thank you for leaving a comment. The nutritional info is not updated
I also had a problem getting the tofu crispy. What kind of oil do you use? I finally added the sauce when the firm tofu pieces began to break up. While it was still good, I want that crispy feature! Any suggestions?
I also did saute my yellow squash a little. Other vegetable would be good like beans or carrots. A good spiralator is an important kitchen gadget.
Hey Kelley, I just used canola oil. Did you coat them like I mentioned in the recipe?
I have not tried the recipe yet, but do I need to try to get some water out of the tofu before cooking with it by wrapping it with a cloth? You have to for some other recipes and I was wondering if this would be one of them!
Hey Amanda, place something heavy on the tofu and leave it on the counter for 15 minutes. That should remove the water
I use extra firm tofu and make sure I get as much water out as possible.
That’s the best way, Kerri! Glad you liked this tofu zucchini noodles!
Love this recipe. Has become a staple!
Thank you so so much Dyana! So glad you enjoyed this recipe!
I was looking for a recipe to use up some left over tofu and with ingredients I had lying around. Lucky me I found this!
I didn’t have zucchini noodles (or a cutter for it) so I used some black bean and sesame noodles that I had lying around instead and julienned a zucchini. It came out really good!
I really love the sauce. It’s similar to some of the sauces I’ve had on salads at asian restaurants.
Will be making this again in the future.
Thanks for the recipe!
That sauce is my favourite too. So glad you liked it Ayrx!
Excited to try this but am wondering if you have ever tried freezing the leftovers and using again at a later time?
I haven’t tried freezing this Kaitlin and I wouldn’t recommend freezing cooked Tofu. The texture wouldnt be great after.
What is the sodium content for this?
Hey Jodi, sodium content for this is 971 mg
Hi, would you also happened to have the calories per serving, as I’m on a diet right now.?
Hey! I recommend using a tracker like myfitnesspal where you can add a link to the recipe and it should help you calculate the nutritional info
I was so excited about this recipe. But it just didn’t work for me. It definitely took way longer than 30 minutes and my tofu never got crispy. The tofu was in the pan for a solid 20 minutes before even adding the sauce, sizzling away, but it never got brown. So then I added the sauce, and it did evaporate, but it never stuck to the tofu and the tofu never got crispy or coated. It still kind of tastes like nothing, and I love tofu.
I still give the recipe 3 stars because this sauce is my new favorite thing. You could put it on an old shoe and I would asks for seconds.
Hey Tara, I’m really surprised that this didn’t work for you. I have so many readers who have tried this recipe and left a comment on the blog as well as Instagram with great results. I have a few questions which will help me troubleshoot: Was your pan hot enough when you cooked the tofu? Did you make any changes to the quantity of sauce/ ingredients/ quantity of tofu?